So I'm a little slow. So what else is new?

[jlh]

I've said this before, but now I'm saying it again, with renewed conviction but also with much less of a defensive edge:

I am not a slash writer.

(Cue epicyclical rolling her eyes at me and saying, "I've been telling you this all along!")

I've been edging toward this conclusion for a little while, though I admit I was fighting it a good deal, too. I can't explain clearly how I knew this; it might have been the response or the way certain kinds of debates about slash itself made no sense to me. There was a very specific kind of satisfaction that I wasn't giving the slashers no matter how much smut I wrote. Despite its main romantic pairing being two men, the primary audience for EWFS was always the het crowd, and not just because there was plenty of (ew) het within.

Then I read the latest essay on why het women write slash this weekend and it finally penetrated my (admittedly very thick) skull. When someone asks me, "Why do you write slash?" my answer is generally, "How could I not?" Among my very closest, longtime friends are gay men and lesbians; to write a story that didn't include them was, to me, unthinkable. But I wasn't thinking about writing these men as a vessel for my desires--or, any more of a vessel than any of the other characters, which I suppose is why there are so many of them. They didn't offer me a means of escape from the female, or the male, or the heterosexual; they simply were, because they exist.

Which, of course, means it isn't slash, but hopefully something closer to just gay fanfiction. My mistake was in not recognizing that these were two entirely different things. Part of the reason was the semi-regular rant about slash characters not being either recognizably gay or recognizably male, which I think threw me off the scent because, I begin to finally realize, writing about gay men isn't really what slash is trying to do in the first place.

(This is not to say, however, that one is necessarily better, or that slash is bad gay fanfic, or that slash aspires to be gay fanfic, but that slash is not and apparently in most instances isn't even trying to be gay fanfic. Where I went wrong was to write gay fanfic that in some ways was trying to be slash. That word "hopefully" is in there to say that at least it aspires to gay fanfiction, even if it doesn't necessarily achieve that status.)

Perhaps now I can move forward with a clearer sense of purpose and much less envy. It's so freeing to stop trying to be what you are not, isn't it?

Comments

[1anonymous1.livejournal.com]

I like you just the way you are.

[hermorrine.livejournal.com]

Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm. This is me, thinking a lot. I'm not trying to say that you're wrong - because of course you can feel however you'd like - but I guess I'm not certain I'd agree. I think I need to think about it more. And maybe this is one of the things you and Cassie and Rach and Dionne and I can talk about - next week!!1!!!!

[weatherby.livejournal.com]

:D:D:D! I am totally up for doing such a thing, as Clio and I were just discussing it earlier.

[hermorrine.livejournal.com]

W00t! Because yes, I am still pondering. I suspect I will continue to do so until we can all talk. :D!

[thegraybook.livejournal.com]

Whee! *is with the looking forward to the talking, only please do not bring Macauley Culkin with you*

[weatherby.livejournal.com]

Are you able to escape on Saturday? As I was talking to Clio and this seems like the best day.

[thegraybook.livejournal.com]

I shall creep out of Josh's parents house in the dead of night.

Actually, I think it would probably be fine. I'll ask.

[misscora.livejournal.com]

See, me, I know what I like and tend not to bother overly much with what people call it all. I like your writing, be it het, slash, gen, gay fanfic, or purple people eater style other.

I am possibly not understanding the issue, but will give it a shot.

[mahoni.livejournal.com]

Er, I totally disagree. I don't quite understand why people are trying to make the definition of 'slash' so complex - why people feel the need to either stigmatize the term or else glorify it. Slash, from it's original inception, is by definition the writing of fanfiction in which characters who in canon are straight are written as being in a same-sex relationship of some kind (love, sex, whatever). The definition of this term has nothing to do with the *quality* of the fic, or what the author gets out of it (pure smutty jollies v. the chance to explore characterization etc.). So imho, because Dean and Seamus are not written in canon as gay or bi and in a relationship, when you write them as gay or bi and in a relationhip, you are writing slash. You are also writing good fiction that cares more about the characters than about your own geekgasms, but you *are* writing slash.

But that's purely imho. I don't know, it seems to me, from all the discussion on the topic, that people want this term to change. Or rather, they want a more 'respectable' term to use to categorically separate the good fanfic they write from the crap. But taking on another term that is, essentially, based on subjective ideas of how a writer represents a homosexual relationship doesn't seem to me like a like a useful solution. Take the term "gay fanfiction:" what's going to happen, eventually, is that some of the crap writers will appropriate *that* term, too. They'll insist, "hey, my wonderful novel length fic that features two male characters who share the names of canon characters but are basically cardboard cutouts I'm just writing so I can watch them do the nasty every two and a half pages IS gay fanfiction, because, duh, they're gay in it, and besides, who are YOU to say it isn't Serious Fiction???!!!one!!"

Yes, I DO agree that there is a difference between what you write and what some others write. You write good slash, as opposed to lame self-centered, hedonistic smut!slash. But, strictly semantically speaking, it's still slash, imho.

Re: I am possibly not understanding the issue, but will give it a shot.

[naufiel.livejournal.com]

Slash, from it's original inception, is by definition the writing of fanfiction in which characters who in canon are straight are written as being in a same-sex relationship of some kind (love, sex, whatever).

I think even this definition is making it too complex. Is a canon pairing of homosexual characters any less slash when written about in fanfic?

I don't see someone as being a "slash writer" or a "het writer" - I could never do that. I write pairings that make sense to me. I read pairings that make sense to me. If you can give me a convincing arguement as to why Hermione could fall for Snape, I'll read that. If you can give me a good and convincing story of how Remus and Dumbledore have kinky sex right after a full moon, I'll read that too... okay, maybe not, but I'll respect the good and convincing part.

I've never seen slash as a way to get het women off, and I've seen and read some pretty darn smutty PWP. But even PWP can be well-written (just as a nude picture can be art).

People will argue why het women write fiction involving gay men until their faces turn blue - there's been detailed discussion of the subject since the 70s at least. One argument says that it's because there is no necessarily submissive character as there would be should a woman be in the mix (but, why then introduce such pairings as student/teacher or commander/subordinate?), or that there's a dynamic between two men that a man and a woman do not have. Opponents will argue that women cannot identify readily with the characters.

But it's really far simpler than that - people write slash because they can see these pairings together. You don't need to have a female character for women to identify with. You don't need to impose equality or "a relationship that women cannot hope to have" or some other BS.

You need two characters the author writes well, and you need a good plot line that draws the reader in and makes them care about the characters. You need a good story.

That is what separates good fiction from the bad, fan or original, slash or het.

Re: I am possibly not understanding the issue, but will give it a shot.

[jlh.livejournal.com]

What worries me is this thought that I'm saying that I don't write slash and that is somehow better than people who do write slash, and that really isn't what I meant at all.

What I meant was that it's been clear to me for quite a while that I wasn't writing the sort of slash that people wanted to read, and that I wasn't fitting into the slashers, and that whenever I saw one of those "why I write slash" essays they weren't just not about me, but they in no way whatsoever represented me.

I had thought, as you are saying, that slash was merely writing two characters as gay that aren't clearly gay in canon. But as things go along, and very particularly the current conversation in sistermagpie's journal where in this comment (http://www.livejournal.com/users/sistermagpie/71135.html?thread=1669599#t1669599) the writer says very specifically that slash has nothing to do with gay men, I'm seeing that this isn't the case. And honestly, I feel rather naive in thinking that it was!

Re: I am possibly not understanding the issue, but will give it a shot.

[ivyblossom.livejournal.com]

Why are you letting other people define your place in fandom? Or what it is you're doing? Why do they get to define slash?

[ivyblossom.livejournal.com]

I looked over this essay you point to, but I still don't get it. What exactly is slash then? Are you suggesting that you are writing "real" gay men while the rest of us are writing "fake" gay men, creations of our own internal desires for the perfect man?

Cause like. Uh.

[jlh.livejournal.com]

I'm not suggesting that--I think that the writer of the essay, however, IS, suggesting that, and it's up to you whether you do that or not. I'm also suggesting that this has been an undercurrent in nearly every essay about slash that I've been reading lately, like sistermagpie's latest entry (particularly in this comment (http://www.livejournal.com/users/sistermagpie/71135.html?thread=1669599#t1669599)). I'm just reacting to that definition that I've seen popping up all over the place. It seems that folks are saying that slash has nothing to do with gay men, when I always thought it did.

Also, I'm not putting the pejorative spin that you put on it--I've been disappointed that I wasn't writing slash, and while people were saying to me, "No, Clio, you don't write slash" no one seemed to be able to tell me what the difference was until fairly recently. I had been feeling honestly a bit like I didn't fit into the slash community and not understanding how, and now I do. But that isn't to say that I wouldn't rather be in the slash community writing slash with other like-minded folks instead of writing what apparently isn't slash.

[ivyblossom.livejournal.com]

I'm still not really getting it. What do you see these people saying slash is then? Lots of people write because they want to write, that in itself has nothing to do with gay men.

Are you saying that you ship dean/seamus for reasons different than, say, some slash writer's reasons for shipping harry/draco? And that one motivation is for the betterment of gay men's lives, and one is for personal titillation?

Because I'm all for talking about the deepseated homophobia that exists within the slash community, pretty predominantly, even. But I don't think that reality makes me any less of a slasher.

[ex-lunasparr180.livejournal.com]

::rolls eyes along with epicyclical:: I've been telling you for longer, I'm sure... ;)